This is a guest blog post by Lisette Sutherland, Director of Collaboration Superpowers and author of Work Together Anywhere, a handbook on working remotely.

In March 2020, COVID-19 sent many people home to work. And the remote working naysayers saw that it was possible to work together from anywhere.

It has, however, been a rough ride as we all discovered that having to work from home during a pandemic is not the same as choosing to work remotely. Even seasoned remote workers have experienced significant stress and disruption. Between working at home with families, online schooling, navigating the various lockdown rules, and figuring out how all the tech works, there has been a lot of fodder for a bumpy ride. But many of us did it. And in the process, as we smoothed out the bumps, we realized that working from anywhere was not only possible, in some instances, it was preferable.

“The new world of work is working from anywhere,” said Evan Kirstel, Chief Digital Evangelist and Cofounder of eViRa Health. “There’s a whole class of mainly younger workers taking advantage of this new flexibility to integrate travel with work and their lifestyle. The technology now — wireless 5G, security, mobile computing — means you can really take your work anywhere.”

Many offices won’t be able to open and operate at full capacity for a long time. At the same time, some people don’t want to return to the office, even when it’s safe to do so. They don’t miss the commute. They’re more productive outside the office. And they like the freedom that remote work offers. Extensive polling of workers around the world shows a clear answer: The future of work is choice. We need to prepare ourselves and our companies for a new “hybrid” way of working.

“Given the new distributed style of working, I think you can be very efficient and productive in a hybrid model — where there’s some time in the office, and there’s some time at home in a very productive fashion,” Evan said. “There’s this marrying of the two that seems to be what people are settling on.”

Hybrid working is increasingly popular because, if done well, it enables significant benefits to both the employee and the company. Employees enjoy more freedom (freedom to choose when and where to work) and, as a result, are happier and more engaged, which improves productivity. For companies, hybrid working can be a way to increase employee motivation, attract and retain talent by offering more flexibility than some of their competitors, and reduce their office space and costs – and as a result, improve their economic performance.

But don’t underestimate the challenges:

  • Work/life fusion: Working at home with family interruptions and finding our boundaries for having a good work/life balance/fusion is a battle. People struggle to know when and how to switch off at the end of their workday, with 40 percent of hybrid or remote employees reporting an increase in the length of their workdays.
  • Team communication and collaboration: How can people who work at different times and places communicate and collaborate efficiently? Digital tools are great, but we lose the quality of frequent, easy, face-to-face exchanges. And meetings can be more complicated to organize in a hybrid scenario.
  • Team alignment: With hybrid working, it can be complicated to clarify roles and responsibilities, to visualize what success looks like, and to foster the company’s culture. Throw in time zone issues, and the problem compounds.
  • Trust and team building: Building trust and creating a sense of team become more difficult because an “us vs. them” mentality naturally develops with groups of people working in different locations. Many people can feel left out or overlooked.

So yes, having the freedom to work when and where we are most productive — and having an engaged and connected workforce is worth making happen. However, it isn’t without its challenges. The pros and cons are worth careful consideration so you can realize all the benefits and reduce the risks.

“Companies need to make remote working an integrated, seamless system that’s highly secure and isn’t a burden to the employees,” Evan said.

Work/Life Fusion

To make hybrid working successful, you first need to understand your own working style. Figuring out a routine and a working style that suits you can take a long time, but once you fine tune it, you can truly enjoy a customized workspace that meets all your needs. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • What does my ideal workspace look like? What do I need to be sustainably productive?
  • How does my work break down across focused work, busy work, and collaboration? What environment best suits those types of work?
  • Do I crave the working-together energy of being around teammates?
  • Do I need the structure the office provides?

Some of the most popular productivity advice for creating a sustainable work routine for yourself, is creating boundaries and sticking to them. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport recommends that you “be on AND off.” Give yourself working hours when you’re plugged in and make sure to unplug in between.

Team Alignment

Once we know what we need to work productively from anywhere, we need to figure out how to best sync with our teams. We can start by asking ourselves the following questions:

  • What are my personal commitments, and what times of the day/week make the most sense for me to be at the office/working remotely?
  • What kind of work is best done at the office or when there are other people around?
  • What routines and patterns are the rest of my team creating and how might we start to sync?

When we work together in the same place, we can see what people are working on. Behavior is implicit because we tend to understand what everyone is doing. After all, we can easily observe people and make inferences. When we go hybrid, we must make our behaviors more explicit, leaving nothing implied so that there is minimal room for confusion.

We can avoid basic miscommunications by creating a team agreement: a basic set of expectations for how to work together. A team agreement outlines what kind of information we share, how we communicate with each other, and how we know what we are all doing.

Whether you’re starting with a fresh team on a new project, or whether you’ve been working together for a long time, creating a team agreement helps form the glue that binds your team together.

Team Communication and Collaboration

“What an amazing enabler technology has been — from the core of the network reliably delivering broadband and wireless services, to applications that enable secure remote working over encrypted networks, to collaboration tools which has seen an explosion of usage and investment, to video conferencing, and on and on,” Evan said. “It’s several decades in the making of tools, platforms, and technologies that have come together in such a meaningful way.”

When it comes to technology, the advice for individuals is the same as for companies: invest in high-quality tools. We want crystal clear, easy communication on our teams. To have that, we need great internet and high-quality equipment like webcams, headsets, and conference room facilities.

“Managers have to embrace technology — they have to embrace video and social media, communication tools and live streaming, and other ways to engage and reach employees that aren’t a quick chit-chat in the hallway away,” Evan said. “The onus is on the business leaders to set the stage and set the example [for] how you engage a fully remote workforce.”

As we go hybrid, many companies will need to repurpose their office spaces based on future use. What percentage of the team will work from the office? How often? What kind of space will best serve the work? How do we strike a balance between openness and privacy?

We may need to create more private areas in our offices where teams can have meetings. For great hybrid collaboration, modern conference rooms should be equipped with technology that allows remote participants to have “presence” by being easily seen and heard. We want to design for formal and informal encounters.

“One of the highlights of my technology career is seeing the cloud, connectivity and security come together to enable these remote workers,” Evan said. “Now, companies are doubling down on the investment in tech to enable this new world of [seamless and transparent] remote work.”

But it’s not just companies that bear the responsibility for a great connection. Remote participants also need to make sure their infrastructure is up to standards. At a minimum people should have a strong, reliable internet connection, a quiet background, and a good video connection when necessary.

When lockdowns started, many companies tried to mimic the office online. That resulted in endless online meetings. Soon we started to hear about “Zoom fatigue.” It turns out, some things don’t translate well online. Working remote isn’t the same as working together in person. It’s like the difference between radio and television. Both broadcast information, but the content is unique to the medium.

One of the keys to successful remote working is being more conscientious about how we use our time. An easy place to start is to shorten our online meetings and take a physical break (outside, if possible) before the next activity starts. If a meeting is longer than 45 minutes, the advice is to take a five- to 10-minute break in the middle.

The next step is to evaluate whether we really need that meeting at all. For example: Perhaps status updates can be shared asynchronously using an app instead. For presentations, consider recording a video and sending it for participants to watch before the meeting starts. Instead of brainstorming together on a call, consider posting ideas to an online whiteboard before the call to give everyone a chance to think on their own time.

Synchronous work prioritizes being connected over being productive. Getting better at asynchronous communication means fewer interruptions and more control over our workday. It also gives people time to process and reply to information instead of going with quick decisions that are often made in timeboxed meetings.

The ratio of asynchronous versus synchronous work differs for every company. The goal is not to replace all your synchronous communication, but rather, as Cal Newport advises in his book A World Without Email, to “replace low-effort communication with high-quality touch points. We want to prioritize being productive over being connected.” The key question to ask is: what do we need to discuss together online? And what can be done asynchronously?

Trust and Team Building

Team building is aligning around a common purpose and enjoying working together. We create camaraderie by understanding each other’s intrinsic motivations. Why do we and our colleagues come to work every day? What drives us to do what we do? When we know what intrinsically motivates each other, it’s easier to set up the conditions for team satisfaction.

Start with Trust

Trust that it’s possible to work successfully in a hybrid way. Many companies are making it work so we’ve seen that hybrid working is possible. And then, trust your team to make the right decisions and be responsible in this context. My research has shown that trust on hybrid teams is built through reliability, consistency, and responsiveness. Can I rely on you to get your work done on time? Will you deliver consistently good quality work? Can I find you if I need you?

As leaders, we can start with a mindset of trust and then build reliability, consistency, and responsiveness into everything we do. How do you trust when you can’t see what people are doing? One answer can be found in replacing a time-oriented mindset (like being at the office during set hours) with a results-oriented mind set. With a results-oriented mindset, work is the results we deliver. As such, results-oriented managers are tasked with holding team members accountable. Workers know this, and we know we need to demonstrate our productivity. In exchange for a flexible workplace, we gladly take on a share of the responsibility of meeting our team’s goals. We all have some responsibility for ensuring our teams and projects thrive, no matter where we are.

Team Building

One of the ways we can learn about each other’s intrinsic motivations is through a practice called Moving Motivators (by Management 3.0). In this game, participants are asked to rank a list of 10 intrinsic motivators from most to least important, then discuss the results with team members. Learning what our colleagues need to feel connected on a team allows us to create better relationships and increase collaboration.

Working together in the same place presents serendipitous moments — sharing an elevator can turn into grabbing a coffee together. Seeing each other daily enables us to build trust and increases camaraderie on our teams. But when we’re remote, we must work extra hard to become a cohesive unit. Even though we can digitally connect with people all over the world with the click of a button, it’s sometimes more difficult to connect on a personal level. To do this, we must find ways to get to know our teammates and define our team culture. When we deliberately engage in virtual team building activities, we bring everyone together and bonds form.

Remote teams don’t often make the time to just hang out together. Team building activities can be built into our everyday interactions. And because we will never accidentally bump into each other we need to plan for and create “unstructured time” together.

While it seems counter-intuitive to plan for spontaneous interactions, that is exactly what hybrid work is calling for. Providing plenty of networking and socializing opportunities, both virtually and in person, will help foster connections and inspire collaboration across the organization.

Working together in the same space gives us constant contextual feedback and the opportunity to share concerns and delights. On remote teams, we must create a space for things to be brought out into the open. All teams can benefit from doing a little reflection and highlighting both “the good” and “the bad.” Scheduling regular times to check in with each other gives teams the opportunity to focus on what’s going well and what can be improved.

Experiment, Learn, Adapt

Undoubtedly, the best advice out there is to experiment with small steps, learn, and adapt. The way we work is evolving, and it’s going to take some time to get to a happy medium with our teams.

Many people noted the importance of consistently checking in with and taking the pulse of how the team is feeling over any given week. It shows that you care, creates bonds with your team and enables you to take actions when you notice that motivation and morale are failing. It’s important to create a climate where people are connected to a shared purpose, are happy with their jobs, and have fun together. We need to create ways to do this online or offline as regularly as possible.

Hybrid working is a new medium of working and not everyone is savvy with all the behaviors and tools. Offer training and support for those who are struggling to adapt to this new way of working — whether it’s helping them use new technological tools, manage your time more effectively, being more productive, etc.

Every team is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to great collaboration. When discovering the right setup for your team, our advice is to be open and curious, and try as many things as you can.

Understanding and thriving in this new hybrid way of working can open up a whole new way of living and working. When people are able to work when and where they are most productive, they are able to craft a lifestyle that suits their individual interests. Workers can now use technology to make better use of our time. Maybe that’s training for a triathlon, spending more time with family, or just shifting work hours to a more convenient time. This freedom contributes to employee happiness and, thus, engagement and loyalty.